TRB RANT

if i see one more hanson fan bitch (anonymously, at that) about how stupid & ridiculous we (the people going on the rock boat) are, i will seriously tear my hair out.

face it: 99% of you are hiding behind your bullshit excuses ("i dont want to be trapped on a boat with crazy hanson fans!" "i would never spend $2000 to see kate & natalie in a bikini" & etc, etc) - you guys are JEALOUS. do you think i love having to bust my ass every single day of my life to save up over $1000 for the cabin alone? of course not!! but i didn't even think twice when i made my purchase, because i knew that the experience alone would be worth TEN TIMES what i paid to be there in the first place!

i'm sorry you can't go. i'm sorry you can't afford it. but quit tearing us down because we can. just take it for what it is, and shut your mouths. to be honest, with the way you guys are acting, i'm glad you can't go - you don't seem to the be types who would appreciate it anyway. and to put it plainly, i'm more concerned about some of YOU being the crazy hanson fans than 50% of the craziest ones that will actually be there.

so, okay. sit here & bitch & whine about how stupid & ridiculous we are. i can 10000% promise we will not be thinking of you while we are in the caribbean, watching our favorite band play night after night in what will be one of the most amazing once in a lifetime experiences we will ever know - while you refresh hitz r us & whine about how "pathetic" we are. AWESOME!! i hope you make the most of it!

and while i'm on my soapbox, one more thing - the fact that some of you called going to see hanson multiple times on one tour "wasting money to see the same show night after night" - what the hell are you doing here, anyway? i'm serious. statements like that make me embarrassed to be in the same fanbase as you, because that is so far from the truth, and you are so far from having a clue that i could actually be sick.

shame shame know ya name

i embarrassingly enough loved this.
& i'm pretty sure i wouldn't say no to joe jonas, either.

circus life

Ciera: I do feel like we've finally crossed that line. To friendship.
Me: Did you say to frenching?
Ciera: No! To friendship.
Me: ... oh. Damn.

Last night, 2 hot 2 trot.
Nothing says fun like running across four lanes of Atlanta traffic in crappy flats, sweaty bangs, behemoth peanuts, & sobbing along to a few Aslyn tunes.



you should immediately
listen to her if you haven't already.
you will never regret it!

It is so depressing to me to come home from a show, because I feel like I am returning to THE GRAND FACADE that is me. Like my secret identity is this person who travels from show to show all the time and gets to have so much fun listening to music and meeting cool people, a girl who can just pack up the car and go without the how & why & all that is inbetween - & then I have to come home and smile big and be the other side of myself for the people in the other side of my life who don't understand just how funny a story about something seemingly benign but actually so incredibly significant can be. It's the worst feeling in the world, having to leave behind a place and time where you feel comfortable and alive, where the skies are bluer and the grass is greener and you can actually SEE hope & promise on the horizon, only to return to who you are, day in & day out, the monochrome, to alarm clocks and bank accounts, bloodshot eyes and only the doubt remaining in your heart.

Anyway, sob sob sob.



The only perk of coming home - having a f'Real on the way back.

I did not work today. Well, I did, for two hours, and then I came home with intentions of sleeping and have not seemed to do that quite yet. In other news, I am considering doing hair at a funeral home as a part time job. This is sadly a longtime dream of mine, as it will further me in my quest in mirroring my life to the movie My Girl. Then all I will need is a mood ring and a biffle to die from beestings. Okay, I'm tagging out now. LaterrzZzzZ.

get bent, forman

the great apple turnover
some sketch hotel, durham, nc

how did i forget i had that on my computer? i just now found it.
FOR STARTERS. CAN WE JUST TAKE A GANDER AT THIS?!? no words necessary. JUST BEHOLD.
i am already so stressed out about equus/nyc that it has basically ruined the entire thing. not ruined, but caused shortness of breath and chest pains when i think about the week i'll be spending in the big apple, instead of prompting spasms of elation & jazz fingers. i think that i will only be able to breathe again when I am somewhere in between maryland & the jubilant sight of daniel radcliffe's manhood, and even though i know that everything is totally & indefinitely going to be okay, i am still worried. i mean, there is always the credit card, right? nature's way of making sure you never have to go without. egads, brain. work is just slow right now! like, terribly & horrifyingly. i made $3 in tips today. WHAT WILL $3 CONTRIBUTE TO MY NYC FUND? i think i am going to try to not think about it. it is summer, and kids are in camp or whatever kids do in the summer, and next week is the independence holiday & people go out of town, and the economy is a hellhole - and to be honest, money has been better than last year. but you know, i'm not using it as toilet paper yet, so therefore, there is just not enough of it to ever go around.
do you know what. i think there is another reason that i am stressed out also, and it is the ever present shark lurking in the waters of my life - Hanson. if i miss hanson in the fall, i swear to any & all of you that even though i will be martinis at the bar w/ TH in january on TRB, i don't care - I will be inconsolable. i have not missed a tour (okay with the exception of the Underneath Tour in 04 but I did see them the day before it started so I like to count that anyway) yet & I refuse to start now. seriously how could i stop now? riddle me that. in the last eight months, i have gotten runaway run two nights in a row & had to deal with the manifestation of rock, young ladies, and is that a bookcover, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. come hell or highwater (or years and years of being in debt to the man), i will find a way to see those boys play. in other news: aslyn the day after tomorrow. i only ask that there be a f'real along the way. and a couple of peaches at the show.

ps: how CUTE is my dog??

deny deny deny

i have to wonder that when strangers ask if he has children, does my father say 1 or 3? how many people in this world know him only as the father of little a., and know nothing of the two nearly grown children he fathered before? i wonder if i had an answer if it would make any difference either way.
i don't think of myself as abandoned, or unloved - i don't think of it at all, really. but sometimes, just sometimes, you do have to wonder. in the house where he lives now, there are no traces of the family he belonged to before, and the phone calls wishing happy birthdays & merry christmases stopped so many years ago - but you do. you just have to wonder if he ever stops to think about the choice that he made. i will, for the rest of my life - and to me, i think it would only be fair that he have to do the same.

"It's like his naked unicorn performance. It's gross." - my brother.

PARDON ME WHILE I DIE BUT
I HAVE 3RD ROW SEATS TO SEE THIS
IN THE FLESH (LITERALLY & ALL PUNS INTENDED)

SEPT 05, NYC OR BIZZUSSSSST

G2G

an excerpt from a text conversation w/ the long distance biffle:

she: watcha doooooin?
me: CLLLEAAAANNNNINNNG
she: for?!
me: for myself!
she: ...huh...weiiiiird.

daily aggravations

001 - actually said to me, by a client, who was in my chair at the time: "my friend, she goes to a professional, she pays like $60 for a haircut, and she told me to come to someone young ..." (and at this point, my vision had started to tunnel and rage was ringing through my ears, so i really couldn't tell you how the rest of her ignorant rant proceeded). ladies & gentleman - $60 spent does not a good haircut make. trust me. half of of my life is spent correcting the bullshit that so & so got from such & such big name salon. & coming to a chain salon does not mean that just because you are scrimping on cost, that you are also scrimping on talent. you know what that little thing hanging in my mirror is? a license. because i'm a licensed PROFESSIONAL. eat me, redneck.

002 - why is it that the minute, make that MILLISECOND that you put headphones in, 20 people literally crawl out of the woodworks to start a conversation with you? i am just trying to enjoy the 30 meager minutes a day i have to eat my crappy lean cuisine and listen to anything besides someone whining about their psoriasis or thin hair, and bam. suddenly i look up to find P., leaning in and chatting animatedly in my face, oblivious to the fact that I can't hear a word she is saying. It is only when she stares at me, obviously expecting a response, that I sigh, pull my headphones away, and ask her to repeat herself. Finally, she teeters off, and I replace the headphones, tapping my foot along to the beat of the Elizabeth & the Catapult EP I bought off of itunes last night & have been literally dreaming about listening to ALL DAY - when I hear a strange muttering in the background. Is Elizabeth & the Catapult trying to persuade me to join a satanic cult? No, of course not - that is just S., telling me her entire life story, laughing and waving her arms like a loon as she reenacts another tale of her son's DUI debauchery. Should I pretend to not hear her? Clue her in on the HEADPHONE phenom?

Of course not. I end up putting my ipod away and spending the rest of my break listening to the thrills and misadventures of my coworkers. honestly. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. don't make me go any further with that song than that, people.

now that i am thoroughly irritated, i am going to knit & continue watching planet of the apes.

bend it like beckham

i just spent an embarrassing amount of time ogling this.

why it's no wonder

a brief look into a day in the life of a hair champ: watching my new favorite, secret diary of a call girl, on my lunch break -
& dumpster diving with a client @ the jewelry story next door.
sadly neither of these things are very relevant to my job.
even more sadly, these are things i am doing INSTEAD of doing my job.
well, what can you do?

i came home tonight to find that my brother spent the afternoon in the ER, complaining of chest pains & believing he was having a heart attack (my brother is only 15, mind you) & after a bit of poking and prodding, they found that the walls of his chest are quite swollen & something or other else long & medically termed that didn't mean anything to me. point being: no good. he is home & sleeping, and will hopefully be well in the morning. i said to my mother, "does this mean that we can't fight each other anymore?" I am assuming by her pointed expression that it should have been a given. anyway, all of this aside, it kind of freaked me out because my brother is like 99% of the lulz in my life & aint no chest pains gettin in the way of that AMRITE?!
No work tomorrow, lalala. I am going to sleep the day away.

pirate smile

I live such a big life, I do so many great things and get to experience so much that i just feel lost when im supposed to be like everyone else. what is downtime? what are the moments in between? Friday night, I am off work and I feel panic because there is so much empty time. Do I knit? Should I read? How do people do this, go to work, come home, rinse, repeat - and not go crazy?
I look at the people around me and their idea of success and contentment is money, a little nest with a husband or wife, three kids by the age of 22 and a big backyard with a golden retriever. Am I wrong because I would feel like a bird in a cage if I had someone to come home to? Would you feel your skin start to crawl if the roles were reversed? What is wrong with me that the clock that I hear ticking inside of me has nothing to do with the babies that I haven't made or the husband that I haven't found?
I do not know how to balance a checkbook, make spaghetti, or iron clothes. I don't want to have children, pick out china patterns, or have a yard filled with fisher price toys. There was a time when I craved domesticity, couldn't wait for the day I felt little fingers tugging at my shirt, imagined wearing an apron as I hummed along to radio above the kitchen sink as I cut slices of fresh watermelon in the summertime, and now? I feel no warmth towards those ideas anymore. I just don't see myself, blushing and beautiful, walking down an aisle towards the rest of my life, rubbing my belly as a life grows inside of it. That is not the kind of future that I see when I close my eyes.
But I do wonder why I have so quickly and radically changed my mind. I have an idea, a direction in which I can target my blame, the old reliable. I never want to not be able to do what I'm doing right now. Two weeks out of the year, fourteen days tops - are they enough to change the entire course of my life? Is that time spent waiting worth it?
I spend a lot of time worrying that one day i will look back and wonder if i have made a mistake - shouldn't I have wanted to fall in line with everyone else? But i dont know if my life has ever really been an option. its not like it was a question - will you or won't you? or a path i chose - this was just the hand i was dealt. i did not ask to be so affected. if you had asked me, eleven years later, if this would still be my life, if i would wake up every day and still find myself asking, i don't know if i would have said yes. but then again, i don't know if i would have said no, either.
it is what it is. you take the bad with good.
and you wouldn't believe how long you can carry fourteen little days in your heart.

saxaphone & a slide trombone

stephen kellogg & the sixers! 5 hrs to roanoke (row an oak?), va & 5 hours back. lets just not talk about (the not talking during) the 5 hrs back. anyway. it was fun, but i have had better nights in my life.
virginia welomes you to its outdoor facilities!
the happiest girls to ever grace a gas station
and it wasn't even a sheetz!

more here:) the show was good. i mean, the sixers are always good - the setlist was decent, i could have done with a little less "blue jean" and a little more "sweet sophia", but they sounded great. however, the atmosphere was HORRIBLE. it was at this little joint, 202 market city bar, which contrary to it's name is not a bar, or any place meant for performing - it is really like a restaurant with a side bar that doubles as a nightclub after a certain hour. so there were a handful of tables and a row of booths lining the walls and 40 girls & guys crammed in between these innocently oblivious patrons who were just trying to dine on their meals. the band was bummed about it, you could tell (and they let us know) and it just was all around difficult. not their fault by any means, but disappointing nonetheless. anyway. i am eager to see them again, somewhere a little less shitty (aka the rock boat). speaking of TRB - only $375 left to pay on my cabin & I'm done :) how stoked am I?
♪♪♪
"Roll Another Joint", Old Springs Pike

HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER

seriously. 

could NOT resist buying these babies. 

shoot straight

today @ work, i serviced 14 clients (seriously. SERIOUSLY. 14 people. that is just ungodly) & had a spat with a coworker that was evidently bad enough to convince her that her job is not worth keeping, so after we fought like scorned housecats, she packed up her things & left. this mostly sucks not because i will really miss her charm & pleasant demeanor (NOT), but because she left before i got to tell her that [since she is going to durham tomorrow with her husband] that she should go on the durham dino hunt. OH WELL. i guess she will just have to miss out. 

i'm tired. i don't want to go to sleep because that means i will only have to wake up tomorrow & do everything all over again. boo hiss whine sob. i am so looking forward to this weekend. not only for the sixers, but also because i want to be back on the road so badly that i would probably drive to kalamazoo to see kenny g or something equally as heinous. 

i keep having this rising sensation of panic - will i ever write a book, will i ever be gorgeous and amazing, will i ever love someone who is not married/famous/gay/a titillating mixture of the aforementioned - and then i try to think - well ... one day you will be dead and none of those things will matter anymore. so try not to worry so much!

is that glass half full or glass half empty mentality? 

run little rabbit

saturday night reunion w/ erin

(& the dogs)

do you ever get the feeling that you spend every day rushing through just so that you can get to that one moment, the flicker of hope on the horizon that gets you through? 

one day, will i look back on the time that i spent running & wish that i had slowed down? or will the moments that i was running towards add up to be enough? 

50th birthday

tonight at dinner, my aunt asked me if i had ever considered growing one fingernail longer than all the rest, like coke addicts do - to help me text faster. 

i really do love my family.  

three in the front & four in the back of a civic

i would give anything to be back in the car with these three girls.

through the mountains, past the ocean, down the interstate and across the back roads, laughing at the most ridiculous & disgusting things, speaking in a language that only we understand, on the way to see the three people that brought us all together in the first place. 

HERE WE GO AROUND AGAIN

WELL THE THING IS ...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

06/08

i think that what makes it worse is not that it's real, but how much i still find myself thinking about it.